DREAM THEATER Albums Ranked

Dream Theater’s place in the music history will definitely be remembered as a band who defined a genre that we all know today as progressive metal. Formed in 1985 as Majesty by guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Portnoy, the band went forward to put out twelve studio albums, seven live records, one compilation release, two EP’s and eighteen singles. They have also released fourteen music videos, and have tons of official and unofficial bootlegs under their belt.

After the release of their debut When Dream and Day Unite in 1989, the band second vocalist Charlie Dominici was replaced by James LaBrie, and the core of the band for the next twenty years was pretty much intact, although they had line-up changes on the position of a keyboardist (Kevin Moore was replaced by Derek Sherinian who was later replaced by Jordan Rudess). In 2010, after 25 years spent in the band, Mike Portnoy left Dream Theater, and Mike Mangini was announced as his permanent replacement. With him in the line-up, Dream Theater released A Dramatic Turn of Events in 2011 and self-titled album in 2013, two records that brought the band their first Grammy nominations.

Prog Sphere has recently made a selection of the top 20 Dream Theater songs, and in this post we tried our best to rank the band’s studio opus from worst to best with a bit of commentary aside.

Feel free to leave your comments with your rankings.

12. Black Clouds & Silver Linings (2009)

Although Dream Theater’s tenth album was expected to be somewhat as their return to more focused songwriting, the band felt a bit out-of-path by pursuing darker and heavier sound. There is nothing wrong with darkness and heaviness, but the thing that feels as the most lacking here is organicity and warmth that adorned some of the band’s previous efforts.